Historically, our fascination with the End has flourished at moments of political insecurity and rapid technological change. “In the late nineteenth century, there were all sorts of utopian novels, and each was coupled with a dystopian novel,” Richard White, a historian at Stanford University, told me. Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward,” published in 1888, depicted a socialist paradise in the year 2000, and became a sensation, inspiring “Bellamy Clubs” around the country. Conversely, Jack London, in 1908, published “The Iron Heel,” imagining an America under a fascist oligarchy in which “nine-tenths of one per cent” hold “seventy per cent of the total wealth.”
After 9/11, my dad filled a duffel bag with some energy bars, a couple gallons of water, some penicillin, and a map. Amid scaremongering headlines about imminent anthrax and “dirty bomb” attacks in the city, he wanted to have some supplies on hand in case we needed to get out of Brooklyn fast. Were he to assemble such a bag today, he’d likely stumble on a number of companies promising a more wholesale brand of disaster preparedness: a box full of shelf-stable freeze-dried meals, to be revived from their dessicated state with the addition of boiled water.
You might also check if there is a local cash and carry…that’s a business which sells wholesale to other business/restaurants. You can buy bulk there for almost wholesale prices. They will have bulk items of many things in addition to other items like paper plates, napkins and you get the idea. If you can find a place which sells bulk, then ask your favorite store to special order. Who knows, you might get it cheaper that way. BTW: Gaye, next time you’re on the mainland near Mt. Vernon, check out WINCO for those bulk items.
What’s on the list depends on which faction of preparedness you practice, pre-Y2K prepper and Seventh-day Adventist Church pastor Craig Wiles tells me. There are preppers, who anticipate an event like an ice storm or an EMP; there are survivalists, who arm themselves to face an enemy like a tyrannical government; and there are homesteaders, who grow their own food and practice self-sufficiency.
Great list for those people who want to start prepping but don’t know how. It would be really great to add survival seeds on that list. Learning how to homestead or growing food will save you a lot of money for survival food. Also, it would be great to consider the place where you’re residing and stock the necessary items you will definitely need in case of SHTF.
Glad i started prepping. I’ve slacked off for awhile, but i’m back. Last year my cities water was considered undrinkable for about 3 days. Couldnt drink it, use it in anyway, not even a shower. Was said to cause vomiting, rashes, etc. You couldn’t go to a store in this city and find water any where. It was crazy. I had about 6 10 gallon jugs of water, stored away. Another thing was the whole gun ban hype after sandy hook. For a long long time you literally couldn’t find ammo. Or if you did you were paying a few… Read more »
58. N95 masks – if there is ever a pandemic, having a mask can be invaluable. Flu, sars, ebola, etc… when the crises hits these be will go fast, so stock up on some before they are needed. It is suggested to get the N95 quality valved respirators, although there is some debate on their effectiveness. A full face respirator will settle the question!
Heck, even if you do have a nearby water source, it may take surprisingly little to spoil it: for example, after an unusually powerful storm, floodwaters can carry toxic sewage from treatment plants and into rivers and lakes. All in all, stockpiling some amount of drinking water is just a smart, low-effort prepper strategy, especially in areas with an elevated likelihood of large-scale natural disasters or industrial accidents.
Don't just keep that stuff in your home; it's actually more important to have such a kit in your car (ideally in the center console) and carry something equivalent when biking, hiking, climbing, hunting, or engaging into other injury-prone sports. There are some lightweight ready-made kits ($19) that may do the trick, although making your own is always a better choice.
Learn about bulk foods and cooking methods that your can use when there is no power to your home. Many of the websites selling food will have blogs as well as links to helpful information. Why not use them to increase your overall knowledge and become familiar with additional tactics and strategies for storing food for the long term in a hassle free manner?
There are other ways to absorb the anxieties of our time. “If I had a billion dollars, I wouldn’t buy a bunker,” Elli Kaplan, the C.E.O. of the digital health startup Neurotrack, told me. “I would reinvest in civil society and civil innovation. My view is you figure out even smarter ways to make sure that something terrible doesn’t happen.” Kaplan, who worked in the White House under Bill Clinton, was appalled by Trump’s victory, but said that it galvanized her in a different way: “Even in my deepest fear, I say, ‘Our union is stronger than this.’ ”
Finelli remained at the helm until he came down with pneumonia in late 2016. Months before, an interloper who claimed to have no Social Security number or driver’s license had driven up from Arkansas on nitrogen-filled tires, used to skirt a law requiring licensing for vehicles with air-filled tires. His name is Andrew:—he has no last name; he says adding the colon keeps him from being cataloged in “the system”—and his resourcefulness impressed Finelli, so he offered Andrew: the mic during his absence. He never got it back.
17. Spices and Condiments. Adding some spices and condiments to your food storage pantry will allow you to vary the taste of your storage foods, thus mitigating some of the boredom that is likely to occur over time. The exact mix of spices and condiments is up to you but some suggestions include garlic, chili, Tabasco (hot sauce), salsa, oregano, thyme and black pepper. For a full list of the best prepper herbs and spices, check out the BDS guide here.
It is worth noting that many personal finance experts advise against hand-picking your investments. Instead, they advocate a process known as "indexing": buying into an investment vehicle comprising hundreds of stocks, structured to represent the stock market as a whole. The proponents of indexing have a point: most people who try to pick individual winners in the stock market usually fare no better than an index fund. But in the context of prepping, I think this is advice is flawed. To remain calm in tumultuous times, it is important to maintain a firm grasp of the merits of your investments. One can convincingly reason about the financial condition, the valuation, or the long-term prospects of a paper mill; the same can't be said of an S&P 500 index fund - which, among other things, contains the shares of about a hundred global financial conglomerates.
Prepping does represent an element of hope, but it’s a “selfish” hope: that you and yours will be able to survive and make it through because you were ready, even if it’s at the expense of everyone else. There doesn’t seem to be another option, though, when our government itself, with trillions of dollars at its disposal, never seems to be prepared even for emergencies that have high probabilities of occurrence, like Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in New Orleans. Perhaps, as prepping becomes more mainstream, the ideas it brings with it, of self-sufficiency and self-reliance, will provide some positive effect on society overall.

Yup. Unintentional injury may seem like a topic unbecoming a true prepper, but it will be hard to live out a post-apocalyptic Mad Max fantasy with a bum leg or a broken neck; and more prosaically, serious prior injury may limit your ability to provide for yourself and your family, confront a robber, or get out of a burning home. It may seem like a far-fetched worry, but the lifetime probability of suffering serious harm is much greater than we intuitively suspect.

While lurking on a prepper discussion thread on Tea Party Community, a social network marketed as a conservative alternative to Facebook, I once saw a rousing discussion about navigating the tricky business of armed combat while confined to a mobility scooter. In that particular hypothetical scenario, individuals were discussing the best ways to kill NATO peacekeeping forces. These are real people, and they live in your city. You've seen them around, buying groceries or waiting in line at the DMV—just doing regular old human activities. The only difference is that these people look at society and see the death throes of something grotesque, and they imagine that it is likely enough that they will find themselves thrown into a new mode of living, something primal and vicious and, let's face it, potentially invigorating.
Food storage should be an integral part of any prepper’s contingency plans. The best prepper food storage containers should not be overlooked if you want your food stores to last. Storing your food in the right containers can give you peace of mind when it comes to your family’s sustenance. If you are starting from scratch, start small and work your way up. I personally prefer to rotate out my pantry using the first in, first out (FIFO) inventory technique. This ensures that I don’t have much food expire (if any) and gives me good visibility of what I actually have stored. Whether you stash your food for 15 years, or rotate your supply every 6 months- the right prepper food storage containers can give you a leg up with your shelf life. Keep exploring, stay prepared, and be safe.

to inventory what I have, I’m amazed, feel a bit better. Some things on this list I dont have much of, but others, I have lots of. I usually buy both krusteez and bisquick. you can use them for other things like chicken pot pie in your cast iron dutch oven, or make a cobbler, and use canned veggies, and canned fruits. now im off to trim lettuce, and asparagus in the garden before they go to seed.

We placed these on heavy-duty shelves, $39–49 at Lowe’s. Plastic totes are great for storing sauce bottles, small cans, etc. just make sure to rotate your stock. If you find someone who is like-minded, you can share things like 50 pound bags of pinto beans, rice, etc. We got corn and wheat from the feed store. No need for expensive freeze-dried MREs. Two IBC totes and a Berkey water filter and you can survive hurricanes, natural disasters and snowbird season here in Florida. Welcome to the world of just common sense.
Nail your studs together in lengthwise pairs at a 90-degree angle to form braces. This makes them stronger. Then run three or four braces horizontally across every door, hammering the nails from above and below directly into the frame at a 45-degree angle. If you drive them straight in, they're easier to pop out when somebody kicks the door. Use more braces to secure the drywall over the windows. Try to use longer nails and leave a couple inches of each nailhead sticking out for easy removal. — Clint Carter
These are not your normal cans of beans- these are the big ones. They are the type that many restaurants use, so they are large portions and meant to stack and store. These cans come pre-packaged from many different sources and are one of the best options for food storage. They will not shatter like glass containers and are strong and stackable. They block light, are air tight, and cannot be chewed through easily by rats. All of these attributes make them the go-to for the military. While the cans are not easily reusable, they make a great option for packing away food for long term storage. There is a huge variety of foods available, and most of them taste surprisingly good. Some good vendor that pack #10 cans with some good food include:
There are quite a few pop culture myths surrounding the dangers of nuclear incidents, contributing to a defeatist attitude among even some of the most hardened preppers. But in reality, such events are a lot more survivable than portrayed in fiction - and perhaps more importantly, the world that awaits the survivors would not necessarily be all that bleak. A good way to explore this topic is a book titled "Nuclear War Survival Skills". It sounds goofy, but it's been written by the folks who worked on the Manhattan Project, and is as close to scientific truth as you can get; plus, it is not copyrighted and can be downloaded for free.
During the Cold War, Armageddon became a matter for government policymakers. The Federal Civil Defense Administration, created by Harry Truman, issued crisp instructions for surviving a nuclear strike, including “Jump in any handy ditch or gutter” and “Never lose your head.” In 1958, Dwight Eisenhower broke ground on Project Greek Island, a secret shelter, in the mountains of West Virginia, large enough for every member of Congress. Hidden beneath the Greenbrier Resort, in White Sulphur Springs, for more than thirty years, it maintained separate chambers-in-waiting for the House and the Senate. (Congress now plans to shelter at undisclosed locations.) There was also a secret plan to whisk away the Gettysburg Address, from the Library of Congress, and the Declaration of Independence, from the National Archives.
These are not your typical 5 gallon buckets from the Home Depot. Food grade buckets are made of a different type of plastic to prevent leaching. They cost a little more than your typical buckets, but are worth it for the added safety and flavor of your food. Food storage buckets should be made with high density polyethylene without BPAs, and be manufactured to meet NMFC, FDA, and UFC requirements. A bucket could have the triangle on the bottom with the number two and the HDPE mark, but not be food grade. This could be due to the construction method, not being able to provide a secure seal, made of reused materials, or even reused themselves after chemicals or paint. HDPE buckets are still porous, and can absorb chemicals stored in it. Make sure that you purchase from a reliable source so you don’t get duped. If you do decide to get used buckets, make sure they have only been used to store food and be prepared to clean them thoroughly.
Another complication is that even if you make the right call, many governments impose onerous reporting requirements on foreign assets - and especially in times of economic hardship, they treat them with suspicion and contempt. Host countries are also more cavalier about confiscating foreign deposits, as evidenced by the Cypriot "bail-ins" in 2013. Lastly, the public associates overseas accounts with tax evasion and money laundering, so it may be difficult to garner any sympathy for your case when things go wrong.
Perhaps interestingly, there is a handful of rifles chambered for handgun ammunition. Canonical examples include Ruger 77 series, Henry Big Boy, and some of the modern-day clones of Winchester Models 1873 and 1892 (e.g., Chiappa 1892 Alaskan). In the prepper context, their appeal is that you only need to keep one kind of ammo for two types of firearms. Putting a handgun caliber in a rifle gives you greatly improved accuracy, virtually no recoil, comparatively quiet operation, and somewhat improved range - but going past 100 yards is still going to be a stretch.

Jim Cobb is the author of Prepper's Home Defense (2012) and Prepper's Complete Guide to Disaster Readiness (2013). He has been a prepper for most of his life and has worked almost twenty years in the security management and investigation fields. He also is the owner and lead trainer for DisasterPrepConsultants.com. Jim's primary home online is found at SurvivalWeekly.com. He lives and works in the Upper Midwest, sequestered in a fortified bunker with his lovely wife and their adolescent weapons of mass destruction.

You have to look at the psychology of this. People can justify pretty much anything when they or their children are starving. And I can understand that to a large degree – who could stand to watch their babies suffering? But if someone can devolve to the above degree just to because everyone else is doing it, the chaos we saw above is only a tiny sample of what could come if people were truly hungry.
Before I headed back to Wichita, we stopped at Hall’s latest project—a second underground complex, in a silo twenty-five miles away. As we pulled up, a crane loomed overhead, hoisting debris from deep below the surface. The complex will contain three times the living space of the original, in part because the garage will be moved to a separate structure. Among other additions, it will have a bowling alley and L.E.D. windows as large as French doors, to create a feeling of openness.
For home intrusions, you should try to act out various scenarios: say, confronting the bad guy or trying to escape. Take into account that break-ins can happen at different times of day or night. Remember that intruders may have varied intents; some folks may be homicidal or high, but most will just want your laptop and will be very worried about getting hurt. Many robbers work in pairs, too.
Tupperware: Sealable plastic bins have changed the world. If you are prepping food for your weekly meals, or transporting food to a friend’s house, plastic storage bins can get the job done. They are dirt cheap these days and are very easy to use. While they can leach, stain, and scratch, as long as you use it for short term storage as intended they are nearly unbeatable.
Based on this crude but honest assessment of the general public's affinity for the common bicarbonate, you'd be surprised by how much survivalists are into it (#2 on the list of "things for preppers to hoard"). They must expect some pretty serious hankerings for tasty leavened baked goods, or they have extensive phobias about the funkiness of their nuke survival backup plans.
Religion, however, has everything to do with survivalism—there are things about your faith that affect the way you live, Fletch says, offering me an example. “Today, a great deal [on the menu] was the special you had,” he says. “Every one of the specials had pork in it. Well, depending on your belief system and where you’re coming from, Dan, you could’ve made several decisions about me.” He’s right; I could’ve thought he assumed the breakfast was on me, so he ordered the most expensive dish on the menu. And those assumptions, he says, can break up a group. “If 99 percent of the people in your group don’t eat pork, and you bring in some person eating a ham sandwich next to you, that’s going to cause some conflict.”
When bands of marauders start roaming the streets, how are you going to keep them out? Tear down a few walls, says Timothy Ferraro, a twenty-five-year construction veteran who's thought about this situation plenty while watching The Walking Dead. "Assuming the attackers don't have a battering ram, you should be able to keep them out using the lumber and drywall already in your home," he says.
Élite anxiety cuts across political lines. Even financiers who supported Trump for President, hoping that he would cut taxes and regulations, have been unnerved at the ways his insurgent campaign seems to have hastened a collapse of respect for established institutions. Dugger said, “The media is under attack now. They wonder, Is the court system next? Do we go from ‘fake news’ to ‘fake evidence’? For people whose existence depends on enforceable contracts, this is life or death.”
"The depth of information that is covered in this book is incredible as is the unique way that the author makes us really think about ideas, situations and resources that are mostly overlooked in the usual short-term survival planning resources. ...This book belongs in the hands of anyone who is concerned with a long-term disruption in society as we know it today. It's practical, common sense approach makes it a valuable asset to all those who wish to not only be prepared, but for those who want to thrive." -- George Romano, Simpler Times Homestead (SimplerTimesHomestead.blogpost.com)

Do some research to make sure you are not wasting your time on implausible risks. How likely is it that you would have to face this particular danger, and how much damage can it conceivably cause? For example, do you live in a 100-year flood zone? In the path of tropical storms? In a high-crime neighborhood? Be sure to search around and study publicly available resources; reaching out to local emergency response organizations can be a good plan, too. Try to focus on reputable sources; the science in doomsday movies and on conspiracy websites seldom checks out.

And now, for something completely different: during a longer water outage, you won't be able to flush your toilet - a little-appreciated but grave hygiene risk. When living in a single-family home, you should probably get a shovel and a pickax: they are useful in the backyard either way, but if push comes to shove, such tools allow you to dig out a latrine and address the sanitation problem in a fairly sustainable way. Of course, dumping bagged human waste into trash will work for a while, too, but it quickly becomes a liability.
Only suggestion I’d make is for #8 Develop a communications and transportation plan: Add a get home bag to your vehicle or in your office. If you can’t do that, at least have a small every day carry bag that has a few essentials to help you get home if you have to go on foot. I’ll always remember the videos on the news about the hordes of folks walking out of NYC and have to wonder how many of them had more than just a small purse with them. I have GHBs in both cars and another one at my office in case I can’t get access to my car. Just small backpacks with some food, blankets, small first aid kit and a few sundries. Vehicle GHBs add small camping stove and fuel tablets as well as tiny tent and disposable mylar sleeping bag plus a small supply of silver dimes in case I can’t use cash and need to buy my way home.
There are many schools of thought on what should be stock piled in the event of a disaster or prolonged period of social disruption or societal collapse. It is hard to say with complete authority what “The best” foods are. This will depend on a number of factors, such as storage space, number of people to be fed, availability of water for preparation, availability of a means to cook foods or heat water, and the list goes on. There are however some standards that can guide pretty much anyone in the right direction. Just be certain that whatever you store, it provides enough calories, a dietary proper balance, vitamins, minerals, and fats. Remember, a crisis has a way of creating situations that will increase your caloric requirements, and that will tax your immune system and electrolyte balance.
A get-me-home box. A container always kept in the trunk, small enough so that it doesn't hinder your normal use of the car, but substantial enough to help you survive several days (or cope with other, more prosaic roadside emergencies). The kit should include 1-2 gallons of water, Mylar blankets, rope, and other car supplies discussed earlier in the guide. A collapsible water bottle and a folding daypack can be useful if you have to walk on foot from a broken car to the nearest town. Throwing in some cash - just enough to pay for gas, a meal, a motel room, or a ride home - is also a good plan.

If you have a spouse, walk them through your plans and make sure they can access the essential supplies and know how to use them in your absence. If you have children, give them the very basics as well. For example, in case of a fire, they should know the safest way out without having to wait for you; tell them how to react to home intrusions and medical emergencies, too.

Storing food is one of the best ways you can be prepared. The best prepper food storage containers are the ones that preppers have been using for decades and are tried and true. Some have been around for centuries and others only a few decades. Storing food has always been one of the cornerstones of prepping and preparedness. As supply chains become more and more reliant on ‘just in time’ delivery there are less resources available to help when disasters or catastrophes strike. When this happens, food supplies can easily be disrupted and leave a lot of people hungry and looking for food. Keeping food stored is one of the most cost-effective ways to be prepared for these events, and having the proper food storage containers can ensure your success and survival. Whether you are increasing your pantry size or starting a long term food storage supply, the type of prepper food storage containers you use can make all the difference.
I spent most of the $500 on these food storage items: brown rice, white rice, pasta noodles, pinto beans, black beans, potato flakes, popcorn, buckwheat hot cereal, oats, cornmeal, flour, salt, and sugar. The rest of the money I used on freeze-dried meat & veggies. I also used some of the money to buy 5-gallon buckets to store the food in and 5-gallon water containers.
There are many other ways to get returns on your capital, but most are associated with limited liquidity or significant outlay costs. One well-known exception are publicly traded companies. Businesses usually go public because they want to expand their operations - say, build a new factory or hire more workers. Instead of getting an expensive loan, they put themselves up for sale, allowing people to purchase and trade fractional ownership in the company. The investors' willingness to pay for this privilege depends on two factors: the intrinsic value of the enterprise (its assets, debts, operating profits) and the "hype premium" - the faith in the company's long-term prospects and the health of the entire industry. For some companies, the intrinsic value is modest, and the premium is huge; their shares are usually subject to violent price swings on even seemingly minor macroeconomic news. For other, less exciting businesses, the situation may be the opposite.
Buy dry goods in bulk whereever is cheapest. Transfer into 1 gallon Mylar bags with 1 oxygen absorber per bag. Weight, date and label each bag. Store bags in 2 1/2 gallon food grade frosting buckets available free at any bakery. Each bucket will hold 3 gallon mylar bags. Label each bucket with contents and date. By using these buckets you keep the weight to a manageable level for easy moving. It’s also food grade and water proof. Rotate stock as used. Use the food stoage calculator to figure out what you need and use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of your inventory. Lots of work but you will save thousands in inflation costs and be prepared for almost anything.

However, I submit that disaster preparedness is not inherently a fool's game and that the kind of prepper described I just described is not the definitive picture. The Red Cross, for example, sells bug-out bags, a staple of any prepper's gear. How crazy is it to follow the Red Cross's preparedness advice? Not very. And so much about doomsday prepping is about just having a plan, something most people don't have.

This award-winning series presents compelling untold stories and covers a wide array of provocative subjects. "Explorer" aired for 25 years -- the longest-running documentary series in cable TV history -- before being relaunched in 2015 after a five-year hiatus. Each monthly episode of the new "Explorer" takes a similar deep dive inside a story from the pages of a recent National Geographic magazine issue, taking viewers not only to the most remote corners of the globe but also to the furthest reaches of the mind and deepest crevices of history -- on urgent missions of discovery.
Great article. Very informative and insightful. I also think learning how to store the right food most especially for leaner times is very important. For me canning is the best way to store food. But make sure that you can your food the right way. It is also a proven fact that canning as a way of storing and preserving different kinds of foods has been done since the 1800’s.

What you are going to get is a list of 20 items that can easily be purchased at your local grocery store, warehouse club and surprisingly, even online at Amazon. They can be purchased in one shot, all at once, or you can pick up one item from the list each week over a period of twenty weeks. The choice is yours. All I ask is that you consider getting each of the items on the list and that you also consider getting started sooner rather than later. I promise you that this will be easy.

Now, chances are, if you follow the advice contained in this section, you will not feel an urge to ramp up spending the moment you hit the 6-month mark. So, keep going; with the initial rainy-day fund established and good fiscal habits in place, you can start treating the extra funds with more flexibility - for example, "borrowing" against them to self-finance larger purchases, or aiming to retire a bit earlier and a bit more comfortably than the government expects you to. And by the time your savings are sufficient to get you through a full year of unemployment, I bet that your outlook on life, work, and personal finance will change in an interesting way.

Survivalism, the practice of preparing for a crackup of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: the woodsman in the tinfoil hat, the hysteric with the hoard of beans, the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

Ugh, what a bummer! Your $250,000 underground compound was ready and rarin’ to go, a nuclear bomb was detonated and caused an EMP just like you said it would, but you didn’t get to say “I told you so,” because you died along with all of the idiotic unprepared. Just bad luck you weren’t near your EMP-safe bunker when this happened. You’re there 22 hours of the day, what are the odds? Hey world, I’d like a mulligan please!
I know how you feel when you get that urgent feeling that what you have is not enough. Shelly (the Survival Husband) and I were just talking about this last night. In my mind, I know that I have a lot but I keep purchasing more. Luckily, like you I am good at food rotation although I do have a lot of #10 tins and properly packaged buckets in deep storage as well. Those do not get rotated.
Rope, look at AmSteel-Blue (it’s the diameter of paracord but much, much stronger 8.5 mm is rated at 1600 lbs) it’s light, easily packed and available in larger, stronger sizes too (maybe Gaye can link it on Amazon?). I ‘found’ it as I prefer hammocks in forested areas (the favourite of ultra-light hikers) as it’s used for Whoopie loops (I just bet you’ll have to google that).

I went home, shaken and shaking, all of the adrenaline flooding me at once. I slept uneasily, tossing and turning in my bed. I wanted my partner to sleep next to me, but also couldn't bear to be touched. I had nightmares that lasted for weeks: dizzying, confusing dreams where I was struggling to breathe or see but could hear pain all around me, and I would wake up panting and sweating.

Hello Ryan. My experience has been that the more that you can keep air (oxygen) away from your food the longer the shelf life. I like to seal packaged food into larger mylar bags with an oxygen packet, then I seal the bag. I store these mylar bags in a 5 gallon bucket with lid. Wal Mart has these buckets for sale that cost $2.97 and the lid is $1.12. I personally like having a few barriers between my food and mice, bugs…etc. Let us know what you decide to do!
However, if some tales of survivalist stockpiling are to be believed, our nutty neighbors have enough of the social lubricant squirreled away to hold the most epic end-of-the-world-party of all time outside of Edgar Wright's social circle. It might not be practical, but who needs practical when you and everyone you know is doomed to die from radiation poisoning or cancer?

In an end of the world situation, we won’t have to worry about too much salt or too much sugar. Our main concerns will be keeping warm, getting potable water and enough to eat. A steady diet of tuna fish, canned meats, pasta, bean and rice will quickly get old. You will be happy to have the sugary canned fruit which will add very necessary calories to your diet and provide energy. The high salt which is dangerous now will provide necessary salts when you have otherwise run out of salt for cooking. In addition, most of the prepared foods are prepared to appeal to our taste buds. Food companies spend big money on making “convenience”

Stocking a survival kit is a very personal procedure. Your life may depend on your choices at some point, so you’ll want to ponder the potential disasters you may face and do your best to assemble the items that will help you survive. But, if you start with the items listed above, add in those which will address your personal needs and carry them in a sensible container, you’ll likely keep yourself alive and return home with a great story.